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This is what happens when government finances are managed irresponsibly

As the head of Greece’s largest oncology department, Dr Kostas Syrigos thought he had seen everything. But nothing prepared him for Elena, an unemployed woman whose breast cancer had been diagnosed a year before she came to him.

By that time, her cancer had grown to the size of an orange and broken through the skin, leaving a wound that she was draining with paper napkins.

“When we saw her we were speechless,” said Dr Syrigos, the chief of oncology at Sotiria General Hospital in central Athens.

“Everyone was crying. Things like that are described in textbooks, but you never see them because, until now, anybody who got sick in this country could always get help.” (Source)

If Greece had taken care of business 10 years ago, they wouldn’t be in this mess. Ontario and the US are headed in this direction, slowly but persistently. Obama and Biden like to claim that the Republicans’ budget plans don’t add up. That remains to be proven. However, we know with certainty that the Obama-Biden plan doesn’t add up, because they’ve been in power for 4 years and the US budget deficit has exceeded one trillion dollars each year. A trillion is 1012 or $1,000,000,000,000. And Obama’s latest budget plan, despite it’s optimistic assumptions, didn’t forecast getting anywhere near a balanced budget for the next 10 years. That’s as far as their forecasts go, so we actually don’t know how long it would take for them to balance the budget. Maybe 15, 20, 30 years? Maybe never?

When you hear lefty parties hesitate at the prospect of eliminating the budget deficit, remind them of Elena. Greed and miscalculated compassion lead to greater pain down the road. I say greed because budget deficits mean stiffing future generations so that the current generation can get its fill.